


Times, they are a-changin'

by StrictlyNoFrills



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Currently a oneshot, F/M, Gen, I'm back on my nonsense again, Tony lives because I said so, but who knows?, ending of Endgame fix-it, found family trope, with Harley and a rule 63'd Spidey for flavor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:15:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27634640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrictlyNoFrills/pseuds/StrictlyNoFrills
Summary: He’s panting and sweating from that good old muggy, southern heat, but he runs through every room in the house and checks the garage anyway. Everything is dark and covered in a thick layer of dust. He goes to turn on the lights and finds that the electricity has been shut off. He checks the faucet of the bathroom sink – nothing.Digging his phone out of his back pocket, he tries to turn it on, but it’s dead, too.Or, Harley comes back after Tony reverses the Snap, and he has no idea where his mother and sister are. He finds out Tony is in critical condition and heads to New York, hoping for... he's not sure what, exactly, he's hoping for, other than that his eccentric old mechanic stowaway needs to live, and Harley needs the resources to track the rest of his little his family down.
Relationships: Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Pepper Potts & Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe) & Tony Stark, pre-Harley Keener/Petra Parker
Comments: 6
Kudos: 39





	Times, they are a-changin'

**Author's Note:**

> This is the kind of thing that happens when I get bored and can't focus on any of my many WIPs. I have no excuse.
> 
> Title respectfully borrowed from Bob Dylan.

Harley comes back in the same space in Rose Hill’s necking spot as he was in when something strange happened and he felt himself begin to disintegrate into nothing. Problem is that the car he was sitting in before isn’t parked there anymore, so he has a bit of a rough landing. His tailbone is probably bruised, but the pain and irritation of it is nothing compared to the abject bewilderment he feels.

Where is Sarah Miller? Did she take off with his car after he disappeared? How did she explain it all to his mom – and to her own parents?

He hauls himself up off of the dirt and grass, some of it doubtlessly staining the backs of his jeans. Not that it matters much, compared to the thick, dark oil he can never fully manage to wash out of the faded denim, no matter what detergent he uses or how many cycles he puts them through. Not that he concerns himself much with impressing anybody in this little piss-ant town, save for his mom, and his little sister, and Gary, the crusty old mechanic who took Harley on about a year ago, after watching him take apart and put back together an old four cylinder engine.

Glancing around, Harley doesn’t see another soul anywhere in sight, and hey. Shouldn’t it be nighttime? But the sun is high in the sky, and there are no young couples making out in the backseats of the cars they borrowed from their parents.

Harley takes it all in and high-tails it back home, and even without the car Tony left for him several years back, he makes it home in what feels like less than half an hour.

It isn’t a surprise or much of a feat. Harley can count the number of stoplights in this town on one hand and still have some fingers left over.

The house is dead silent when he finishes shoving his key into the lock and twisting it to let himself fall inside. “Mama? Blaine?”

He’s panting and sweating from that good old muggy, southern heat, but he runs through every room in the house and checks the garage anyway. Everything is dark and covered in a thick layer of dust. He goes to turn on the lights and finds that the electricity has been shut off. He checks the faucet of the bathroom sink – nothing.

Digging his phone out of his back pocket, he tries to turn it on, but it’s dead, too.

He does find one useful thing – his car, untouched. The engine won’t start, which is ridiculous, because he takes care of his Mustang the way he would take care of his own child – obsessively, and always with an eye out for anything that might cause the slightest bit of damage – except for the fact that it makes a sick sort of sense when combined with the lack of running utilities, and the overall untouched look of his childhood home.

No one has been here in a good, long while.

He pushes his car out into the sun so that he can see what he’s doing and gets his car running again, and then he heads over to the local bar. That, at least, he knows will still be there and still be running.

People in Rose Hill would never stand for the bar closing.

He tries to find a parking spot only to discover that the entire lot is packed – bizarre for the middle of the afternoon, because they may like their booze here, but they also made sure to put in an honest day’s work before getting it. He finally gives up and parallel parks it in a space near their tiny municipal building, which is just on the other side of the road.

The bar is filled to bursting with people, and he has to snake his way through in order to get close enough to see the TV, which is playing at full volume in order to compete with the many voices going back and forth with each other in the crowd as a news anchor Harley has never seen before is explaining that half the world’s (half the universe’s!) population has been gone for five years, and now, thanks to the Avengers, they are all, for the most part, back.

Tony Stark is in critical condition in the newly repurchased Avengers Tower, where the rest of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, along with their loved ones, are gathered to await further news of his condition.

Harley, already feeling more than a little off-kilter at the news that he and half the population has been down and out for half a decade, feels his knees threaten to give out at the news. He has never quite managed to grow desensitized to the news that Tony is hurt, no matter how frequently it happens. It always hits him hard, every single time. He makes jokes about it over the phone, tells Tony he has to be more careful, now that he’s growing to reach such a venerable age, and Tony scoffs about the crap he takes from a kid from Nowhere, Tennessee.

Or, at least, he did, before Harley apparently up and fell to pieces five years ago.

He gapes up at the TV for a full extra minute after digesting the news and then he turns and fights to go back the way he came. He goes home, raids every hiding spot he knows about around the house for cash to go along with what he already has in his wallet, throws some clothes and essentials into a duffel bag he has only used a handful of times in his life, and then heads back out to the car.

A quick trip to the gas station, where he fills up his tank and buys a ton of bottled water, sandwiches, and snacks, a portable charger for his phone, and an actual, physical map of the US (blessing his hick town for the first time ever for their backwards ways), and Harley is off, making his way north.

He drives without stopping, other than the quick trips to refuel his tank, to try (and fail) to reach Mama and Blaine with his slowly charging phone, to stretch his long legs, and empty his bladder. The radio plays, different people giving updates on what happened with the Avengers and that Thanos guy, the one they say started it all. Harley listens to every bit of it, drinking in every word and even listening to the people who discuss what it’s been like the past five years with half the world gone, and wondering how the world will cope now with them all suddenly back.

It’s a good question, but not one that anyone can answer.

As he draws closer to New York City, Harley begins to realize that he has no idea what street Avengers Tower is on, or even if they’ll let him enter the building. He quickly decides he doesn’t care. He will _make them_ let him in. He’s been gone for five years. He has a feeling Tony will want to see him, if he wakes up.

 _When_.

 _When_ the old man wakes up.

He manages to find the tower – it’s surrounded by hundreds of people, all apparently holding a vigil for Tony.

After hunting around for a little while, Harley finds a parking garage not too far away, and he walks towards the crowd staring up at the iconic skyscraper, with their posters and their banners and their Iron Man memorabilia.

He winds his way through the people all packed together, only stopping when he reaches an official looking man in the sort of suit he’d expect a security officer to wear. He has broad shoulders, rich, dark skin, and a serious look on his face as he keeps his eyes on the perimeter.

“Sir?” he says, drawing the man’s attention away from the mass of grateful supporters. That intent gaze focuses on him, and if asked, Harley would fully admit it’s a little intimidating. He’d also say he’s never let that stop him before. “I don’t know if you can get a hold of her, but if you have a way, could you please contact Miss Potts? Let her know Harley Keener is here, and he’d like to come up.”

The security officer eyes Harley for a moment and then puts his hand to his ear, speaking quietly and then listening, and then speaking again. He looks at Harley again.

“Go on in, Mr. Keener.”

“Thanks,” Harley says before darting towards the front door, because his mama raised him right.

A young woman sits at the front desk. “Mr. Keener?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She nods and directs him to the elevator, telling him what floor Tony’s people are gathered on.

He hits the button, because FRIDAY, Tony’s more recent AI, doesn’t respond to his request, and then he steps out into a hallway that leads to a large living area.

He sees Pepper Potts and Happy Hogan, who he expects. He sees a short, slender girl with thick brown curls and doe eyes, who looks a bit younger than Harley himself and as though she is being swallowed up by her clothes (He wonders about it briefly, but files the oddity away to revisit later.). He sees Colonel Rhodes. And he sees a little girl who has Stark written all over her.

It’s the sight of her, more than anything, that makes the passage of five years fully sink in for the first time. Tony had a _kid_. An actual, tiny human being, with half of his DNA, instead of creating one with thousands of lines of code or adopting a stray after crashing in his garage.

Miss Potts sees him first – but she’s expecting him, so of course she does.

“Harley!” she says. “I’m so glad you could come.” And it is clear that she means it, even though this will be their first time meeting each other outside of video chats over the phone. She waves him over. “Come on in. Have a seat.” She glances around the room. “Everyone, this is Harley Keener.” She continues making introductions as Harley strides over to a spot on a long, low, heavily cushioned bright blue couch, not too far from the girl Harley thinks must be about his age. She offers him a weary smile and a wave when Miss Potts introduces her as Petra Parker, Tony’s intern.

“His intern?” Harley repeats. “You’re a bit young to have an internship, aren’t you?”

“It’s complicated,” Petra says sheepishly, her voice soft and light and slightly raspy.

“Well, alright, then.” Who is Harley to judge? He was harboring a fugitive, billionaire mechanic in his garage back when he was eleven.

“So, how do you know Mr. Stark?” she asks.

“He’s daddy’s favorite mechanic,” little Morgan pipes up.

“He is?”

“I am?” Harley asks, his voice overlapping with Petra’s before he glanced at her and then nods at Morgan. “I mean, yeah. I am.”

Petra shoots him an uncertain smile. “That sounds like a story, right there.”

“I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.”

She cocks her head. “Guess I’ll just have hear it from somebody else.”

“ _Really_?” Harley asks. What story could possibly be so closely guarded? Unless she’s secretly actually Stark Baby No. 1, but Harley doubts it. She _could be_ , based on her height and coloring and her slight New York accent, and the keen look of intelligence in her warm brown eyes, but even so, something tells Harley that isn’t it.

“Really, really.”

“Alright, then, keep your secrets.”

She blinks at him and then scoffs, a reluctantly pleased little grin tilting up the corners of her lips. “Did you just quote Lord of the Rings at me?”

“What if I did?”

She grins at him full out and then holds out her hand. “Harley Keener, you’re alright.”

“High praise, Parker,” he says as he shakes her hand, initially mindful not to squeeze too hard, and then firming his grip when he felt how strongly she held his own.

“Well, we did just meet. I don’t really know you well enough to say more than that yet.”

“Guess that means I’ll have to stick around for a little while.”

One or two people cough or snort in the background, and Harley ignores them with the ease of long, hard years of practice ignoring the things people mutter behind his back. This is the calmest he’s felt since he first realized something was really, seriously wrong back in his house in Rose Hill, even with as worried as he is about Tony. Harley honestly can’t find it in himself to care what the adults around him think – except Miss Potts, because Harley’s no fool.

“I think you might.”

Well, that settles it, then. Until Tony wakes up and until Harley can find out more about what happened to his mom and his sister, he isn’t going anywhere.

* * *

Moments after Mister Stark defeated Thanos, Petra screamed for Doctor Strange, and the sorcerer supreme created a portal to the medical ward in Avengers Tower. Captain Rogers and Mister Thor worked together with Petra to lift Mister Stark off of the battlefield and carry him through the portal, Miss Potts following right behind them, already on the phone and making the necessary calls to repurchase the building, summon the brightest and best medical minds, and gather the Stark Industries security detail.

Dozens of fighters from the battlefield stream in after them, and with Miss Potts’ leave, Captain Rogers leads those not intimately connected to the Stark family off to what was once the communal floor for the Avengers.

For a moment, Petra thought she might need to go with them, but Miss Potts quickly disabused her of that notion, wrapping her hand around Petra’s wrist and gently tugging her towards a set of rooms. “Why don’t we find something to change into, and then you can wait here with me.”

Something to change into? What? Had Miss Potts and Miss Stark just left all their personal belongings behind when they put the tower up for sale? They'd moved the important, Avengers-related stuff to the compound, but Petra had never seen any clothing, bedding, leisure reading, or the like in evidence amongst the stuff that had been on that plane the Vulture tried to steel. Which meant that those items probably hadn't been there. Petra twitched and then tried to shake it off.

Every once in a while, it still overwhelmed her, how much money Mister Stark had. She never envied him for it - she'd seen the signs of how lonely his life had been, back before the Avengers, back before Miss Potts became a permanent part of his personal life and not just the CEO of his company, so she had incontrovertible proof that money wasn't the key to happiness - but it was still extremely weird to go from dumpster diving for electronics components to having access to the latest, most advanced tech on and off the market, and to know someone who could just up and leave half of his possessions in a building and not even try to get them back.

“Are you sure, Miss Potts? I don’t want to be any trouble.”

“You’re not trouble, Petra. You’re family. Never doubt it.”

Miss Potts found Petra an old, soft grey sweater and a pair of jeans to change into. They smelled like Miss Potts’ floral perfume and hung off of Petra’s skinny frame, but a belt helped keep the pants up around her slim hips, and she rolled the sleeves and the pants up so that she wouldn’t trip or snag the sweater on anything. She decided to go barefoot. Loose clothing she could work with, but shoes that fell off of her tiny feet were a little bit harder to handle.

For herself, Miss Potts chose to change into a light blue sweater and a pair of dark grey slacks which she paired with pewter ballet flats. She looked elegant but still softer than she ever had around Petra prior to the Snap. It was this, more than anything, that made Petra feel as though Miss Potts had meant it when she said that Petra was a part of the family.

She led Petra back out to where Colonel Rhodes waited.

Aunt May joined them shortly at the tower, Happy and little Morgan Stark in tow.

Even though it felt as though Petra had been away from May for far less time than Petra had been away from her aunt, she still ran into Aunt May’s arms, laughing and crying and apologizing over and over for leaving her alone for so long.

“You,” Aunt May sniffled, “are so grounded, young lady. Don’t you ever do anything like that to me again.”

She stayed as long as she could, but eventually, it was time for Aunt May to leave so that she could start her shift at the hospital. She looked guilty, and Petra wasn’t about to have any of that.

“You and I will spend a ton of time together after, alright, Aunt May? We’ll do whatever you want. I’ll even watch those old, schmoopy romcoms with you, and I won’t make fun of them. Much.”

Aunt May gave a slightly wet chuckle. “You’re still a terrible liar, kiddo. But that’s okay. I think I’m going to enjoy hearing you rip into my favorite movies.” The unspoken, _since I thought for the longest time that I might never have the chance to listen to you doing it again_ , hung heavy in the air between them, and Petra squeezed her aunt tightly, though she was careful to avoid using too much of her enhanced strength.

“Okay, then. Just remember, you asked for it,” Petra told her, and she only sniffled a little bit.

“Like I’m going to be able to forget a single second of this,” Aunt May said, scoffing lightly and pressing a kiss to Petra’s forehead.

Petra closed her eyes and breathed in a lungful of her aunt’s scent, which for so many years had simply meant _home_ , and then she let Aunt May go.

“I’ll see you in a little bit,” Aunt May said before turning towards Miss Potts. “Thank you for looking after Petra for me and for bringing me here. For bringing my girl home.”

“Of course,” Miss Potts said, some of her usual poise softened by a compassionate look that all the truly good maternal figures seemed to share.

“And if I’m not back before then, please thank Tony for me, as well.”

Miss Potts agreed and then gently ushered Aunt May off for her shift. There were a ton of people in need of medical attention today, due to the chaotic way in which everyone had been brought back. For a moment, Petra wondered anxiously if she should put on her suit and go help the returned, but then Miss Potts turned to her and said, “Petra, there’s someone very special here I want you to meet.” She looked down at the little girl holding her hand. “Morgan, this is Petra. You remember me and daddy telling you about her.”

Petra took a good look at Morgan and felt the breath rush out of her, because that little face had been thoroughly marked by the Stark genes. Keen, big brown eyes peered up at Petra as Little Miss Stark’s hand waved. “Hi, Petra."

“Hey, there, Miss Stark.”

Morgan wrinkled her nose and gave Petra a big grin. “Call me Morgan, silly.”

Petra’s lips twitched. “Are you sure? Calling you Miss Stark is a sign of respect.”

The littlest Stark shook her head, her nose still wrinkled and her eyes bright with humor. “I’m five years old. Five year olds don’t need respect.”

Petra knelt down. “Everybody deserves to be respected, Miss Stark.”

“But you’re family. You’re not supposed to be stuffy around family.”

With a chuckle even as the words squeezed around her heart, Petra asked, “Oh, you think I’m being stuffy, do you? How about if I do this? Is this stuffy?” She reached out and snagged Morgan close, running her fingers lightning quick over her belly and under her arms and laughing as Morgan started to squirm and giggle helplessly.

“What do you say, Miss Stark? Am I still stuffy?”

“Hahaha, yes, you are! Momma, help me!”

“Oh, no,” Miss Potts said with a laugh, holding up her hands. “I’m staying out of this.”

Petra and Morgan looked at each other and then looked at Miss Potts, both sensing weakness, and a beat later, they pounced.

In the end, they wound up in a little heap on the floor, panting and chortling. Miss Potts patted Petra on the shoulder, quietly thanking her for providing her daughter with a distraction for a little while.

Once they’d all calmed down, they pried themselves up off of the floor and joined the others where they sat on the couches. They ordered pizza - so, so much pizza, much of which was delivered to the floor where the other fighters had gathered, though two large pepperoni pizzas met a swift end once Petra got her hands on them - and then Morgan conked out for several hours. Petra listened to the adults in the room while Morgan drooled on her mother's lap as they caught Petra up on everything she had missed.

Eventually, Morgan woke up and asked for pancakes, so Miss Potts called in breakfast for the tower, too.

By the time they finished eating their second meal since their vigil began, they had only received two updates from Doctor Cho. Mister Stark was still fighting, and he would need skin grafts for the arm that had worn the gauntlet.

“Can I braid your hair?” Petra asked Morgan, who’d been listening to her mother as she spoke on the phone with someone from the SI charity division.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Morgan sank down onto the carpet in front of Petra, presenting her long, dark, thick head of hair for Petra to play with. Petra began dividing Morgan’s hair into sections and then started weaving a fishtail braid, the motions soothing and the pattern complicated enough to occupy her mind. MJ used to let Petra do this when she was stressed about school or about Spidey problems – provided, of course, that Petra undid the braids before anyone else could see them – and Petra wondered if she would ever be able to do this with her friend’s hair again. Had she been one of those left behind? Was she in college now, getting ready to finish her undergrad program, too old and worldly for Petra’s friendship? Or was she one of those dusted, now returned? Had she made it back safely? Petra didn’t know, and she resolved to find out about MJ and Ned both, as soon as she knew Mister Stark would recover.

Eventually, after working her way through several different braids, Morgan squirmed up back onto the couch, bored of sitting still for so long.

She tugged on Miss Pott’s shirt. “Will you tell me a story?”

“Of course, sweetheart.”

Petra leaned back into the couch cushion and listened to Miss Potts tell Morgan the story of Beauty and the Beast, which was apparently one of Morgan’s favorites, since Belle had an eccentric inventor for a father, and this is how she sits still when a lanky, teenaged boy with the prettiest set of blue eyes Petra has ever seen walks in and is introduced by Miss Potts.

He sits near her on the couch and there is a strange electric feeling in her veins.

Her heart is pounding, and she mechanically tugs her arm up to wave at the boy even as she wonders if this is what it feels like to have a heart attack.

What is wrong with her? She doesn’t remember the crush she used to have on Ned ever making her feel like this. Then again, that could be because she eventually decided it hadn’t been a crush at all – just incredibly strong attachment to one of her only friends, compounded by teenage hormones.

She is hardly even aware of the words coming out of her mouth, and she cannot bring herself to care. Harley Keener is something else, the ever-so-slightly southern twang to his voice making the hair at the nape of her neck raise, and the gentle curve of his full lips making her stomach feel the way it does on the rides at Coney Island.

He shakes her hand when she holds hers out to him, and the feeling of his large, calloused palm against her own small, slender one, rendered entirely smooth because of her healing factor, but for the tiny hairs that allow her to climb up the sides of buildings and hang upside down, sends a heady jolt up through her hand, her arm, her torso. It's ridiculous.

Petra has no idea what is happening, but as bewildering as this is, it’s nice to have another distraction from worrying about Mister Stark, and when Harley decides to stick around for awhile, she tells herself that this is the reason she’s pleased by the idea.

As Aunt May reminded her earlier, Petra’s never been a very good liar.

She asks Harley to tell her a little bit more about himself and what brings him to New York, and she sinks into the couch cushions a little bit more, letting his faint, warm accent wash over her.

The world has been irrevocably changed by the Snap. She has no idea, at the moment, where her friends are, how old they are – and that is the strangest thing to wonder about, since she has both of their birthdays memorized; couldn’t forget them even if she tried – if they’re doing okay, she’s still waiting on news about Mister Stark, Mister Stark has a daughter (Does he even need Petra anymore? Morgan is super smart and adorable and funny, and she can't imagine anyone getting to know the littlest Stark and not thinking she hung the moon, and Petra is just some kid from Queens who gives him grey hairs… But Miss Potts says they’re family, and Miss Potts isn’t known for lying, aside from the polite nothings she announces for PR purposes whenever she needs to smooth over things Mister Stark has done, and she really, really wants to believe her.), and Aunt May lived without Petra for five years.

But this – being surrounded by people who care about her and have her back, having a moment to just sit down and listen to a cute boy who smells like leather and motor oil and fresh air – this change, she’s pretty sure, is good.


End file.
